Calling for nominations to become Challenge Courses TWG members

The Australian Adventure Activity Standards (Australian AAS) Steering Committee is now seeking to form a Technical Working Group (TWG) to draft the activity specific AAS for challenge courses.

The activity AAS will hold all the provisions that are applicable to challenge courses and will utilise the ‘core standards’ as its base. The ‘core standard’ covers topics such as risk management frameworks, emergency management plans, child safety and sun safety.

The Australian Adventure Activity Standards will provide the best practice framework for safe and responsible planning and delivery of outdoor adventure activities with dependent participants. This TWG will be working on the voluntary standards for led challenge course activities.

The challenge course activity AAS with be focused on specific provisions (i.e. requirements, recommendations and/or considerations) for challenge courses. These will be “added” to the ‘core standard’ to form the “whole” challenge course standard. The TWG will need to review the ‘core standard’ and then determine what additional provisions are need for the challenge course AAS.

The Australian AAS Secretariat has been working to help identify existing challenge course provisions from all the available existing AAS along with potential ideas from international standards and related sources. The TWG will have the opportunity to suggest ideas to inform the development of a preliminary draft from which to start to develop the challenge course AAS.

Once a draft is completed, public consultation will then take place. Feedback from consultation will then be collated by the Secretariat and reviewed by the TWG, before finalising the exact provisions for the challenge course AAS.

The TWG process

Most of the work will be conducted via an online platform to complete document edits and hold written discussions. There will also be telephone conference meetings to discuss matters and make decisions. Given the likelihood of TWG members being located throughout Australia, it will not be time or cost effective to be able to hold face to face meetings.

A Chair of the TWG will be selected from its members to facilitate the workings of the TWG. The Secretariat will be available to support the TWG and the Chair through providing draft provisions and briefing documents, organising teleconferences, conduct research, assistance with the AAS development and liaising with the Steering Committee on the TWG’s behalf. A code of conduct, Terms of Reference and writing style guide for TWG members will also help guide the workings of the TWG.

About you

Skills & qualities

You will have broad expertise and experience in challenge courses in different settings and ideally with a range of different types of dependent participants. This includes both high and low elements, adventure games and a range of safety systems. Experience in design, construction, maintenance and/or structural assessment of low and high challenge course elements would be highly regarded but not essential. You might also have experience in the delivery of different adventure activities although experience with challenge courses is essential.

You would also have experience within organisations that deliver challenge course adventure activities at a management level. A sound understand of the relationships between organisational requirements and what happens during the activity is also required.

You will also have an understanding or experience on what impact some of the following have in providing challenge course activities for dependent participants:

government regulation, land manager requirements, relevant other international/Australian standards, available qualifications and outdoor sector needs

You may have helped develop standards previously and/or have had involvement in organisational policy and procedure development and implementation.

Time commitment

It is estimated it may require approximately 10-25 hours work in total. It is difficult to judge the exact time commitment required. The key determinant depends on the amount of discussion and decisions required regarding the preliminary provisions proposed.

Availability

Development will take place February 2018 to April 2018. Public consultation is planned to occur thereafter, so members would also need to be available for final revision of feedback received in May/June 2018. Final delivery of the AAS is aimed for July 2018.

There will not be face to face meetings. Internet access will be essential to use the online platform for drafting and conducting online discussions via a commenting system. This allows members great flexibility in when they can contribute, as they will be able to log on whenever is most convenient for them.

A limited number of teleconferences with a set agenda may also held at a mutually convenient time and date with preference given to Monday to Thursdays. Given the possibility of interstate time differences, the most likely timing for these will be from midday (AEDT or AEST) onwards. The length of teleconferences will be limited to between 1 and 1.5 hours.

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